Hake Talbot - The Hangman’s Handyman

THE CRASH OF THE SEA on the rocks was the first sound Nancy heard. She found herself, still dressed in her evening gown, lying across the foot of the bed. It was nearly a minute before she realized she was in the room given her on her arrival at The Kraken that afternoon. The girl pulled herself to her feet and groped her way toward the dim outline of the window. The wind that had lashed the Carolina coast since sundown was beginning to die, but the night was still dark. Nothing could be seen but the white crests of the breakers below.

Nancy stood for a minute gazing out into the night, wondering idly what time it was and why she had not undressed. All at once she became aware of the fact that she had no answer to these questions or to a dozen others. Everything that had happened since dinner was as blank as though she had fainted at the table and been carried up to bed.

Earlier events seemed clear enough: the end of the long drive from New York; the shining mahogany speedboat; the island itself, so curiously named The Kraken, and seeming strangely rocky against the low shore only a quarter of a mile away; the great stone house; the unexpected nature of her fellow house guests; the storm, with its attendant doubts for Rogans safety; and the curious incident of the broken mirror.

Yes, all that stood out sharply in her mind. She could even recall the beginning of dinner, with Jack Frants lean little figure looking so out of place at the head of the table, his seven guests ranged on both sides of him, and the five empty chairs. Nancy winced at the picture. Somehow those vacant chairs seemed more ominous than if all thirteen places had been filled. Her last definite memory was of Jacks high-pitched laughter when Evan had knocked over the salt cellar. After that there were only occasional flashesold Miss Makepeaces acid smilethe black faces of the Negro servants meaningless wordsand then nothing. Yet if she had fainted at dinner, why had no one taken care of her? She could not believe she had been merely carried upstairs and dumped on the bed like a bundle of soiled clothes, but what other explanation was possible?

Well, the answer certainly was not to be found here. With growing alarm Nancy felt her way to the door and pulled it open. A faint glow from her right illuminated the four-foot corridor, and she followed it to emerge upon the wooden gallery built along one wall of the main room of the housea room so huge that the candles placed on a table in its center did little more than call attention to the shadow-haunted darkness which pressed in upon them. Except for the candles and an occasional hiss from the burning driftwood in the great fireplace, there was no sign of life.

As the girl turned to the stairs that led down on her right, a low-toned clock struck somewhere in the depths of the ancient house. Mechanically she counted the strokesten of them. Dinner would have been over about nine, so she must have been unconscious all that time. Suddenly, the full implication of the hour struck her. If it were only ten oclock, where were the other members of the house party? Normally they would be here, grouped around the fire, playing cards, or strumming the piano. Even if they were in the library, there would at least be more lights and the sound of voices. Instead she found only four candles and a dying fire.

Hesitantly Nancy crept down the stairs and had almost reached the center of the room when she heard the thud of the knocker beating against the main door. The shock to the already frightened girl was so great that she was forced to clutch the edge of the table to steady herself. In a few seconds her sturdy common sense came to her rescue. She had wanted companywell, here it was. If some evil were abroad on The Kraken it would be in the house, not out in the storm. She picked up one of the candles and moved forward, holding it before her like a shield.

Then, leaving the inner door of the vestibule wide behind her, she opened the outer door.

Seen in that flickering light, the man who stood there bulked enormous. He was clad in dripping oilskins, and the souwester cast a mask of shadow over the upper part of his dark face.

Please, maam, would you have half a bed for a poor shipwrecked sailor that got crowded out of Davy Jones locker?

Nancy felt her small stock of courage drain away. Then to her relief she heard a chuckle that she recognized, her candle was caught as it fell, the mans souwester was jerked off and she looked up into his laughing eyes.

Rogan Kincaid!

Remember me? I was afraid you wouldnt.

I couldnt see you at first. ImIm awfully glad youre here.

Thanks. Im glad to get here. Thereve been times in the last few hours when I didnt expect to make it. He glanced into the darkness beyond her. This is Frants island, isnt it?

She nodded, still unsure of her voice.

Then why no sounds of revelry? The place is quiet as a catacomb. Where are the other guests?

I dont know.

Rogan dropped his oilskins on the floor of the vestibule and stepped into the great living room. In the uncertain light of the candles there was an almost tangible malevolence about the place. He walked forward to meet it, his hard eyes moving from side to side like those of a wary fighter sizing up an antagonist.

Frants talk of the place had prepared him for one of the whitecolumned Palladian mansions that dot the Carolinas, but this vast pile belonged to an earlier civilization. Built in a time when buccaneers and hostile Indians were realities, it had copied the sturdy lines of its Tudor forebears in stone quarried to make space for its own cellars.

Then, too, Rogans host had promised a houseful of guests, yet Nancy Garwood denied knowledge of their whereabouts. The whole thing began to smell very like a trap, and Mr. Kincaid did not intend to be caught inside it. He turned and found that the girl had followed him.

She was pretty, there was no denying it. Even in that dimly lighted room her hair glowed with the buttercup yellow that had fascinated him in New York because it was as authentic as it was unusual. Her figure also deserved, and received, attention. She suggested a streamlined Boucher nymph and matched his own personal taste to a nicety. Nevertheless, he reminded himself, Nancys charms might have a purpose. One does not bait a trap with thick ankles. Besides, Frant had said she was an actress, and his words were borne out by that touch of theatricality in her clothes which is the hallmark of show people. Perhaps she was acting now.

He put a finger under her chin and raised it until she was looking straight into his eyes.

Im beginning to believeRogan watched her closely while he spokethat this house-party business was just a gag to get me down here and that the rest of the guests are products of Jackson B.s over-fertile brain.

Oh, no, Nancy gasped. They were here all right, only... theyve disappeared.

Disappeared!

Well, maybe not really, she admitted. I suppose I just got frightened at being alone, but I couldnt find anybody and it is only ten oclock. That must be pretty early for people to go to bed even way down here.

How did you get separated from the others?

I dont know. It was... queer. We were in the dining room having dinner, and the next thing I remember I was upstairs lying across my bed. I hadnt even undressed. Nancy glanced ruefully down at the rumpled chiffon of her skirt. I felt a little weak when I woke up, but I wasnt sick or anything, and I only had one cocktail before dinner. It doesnt make sense.